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The impact
of Hurricane Katrina has had regional, national and international implications. Helene
Quigley, a graduate student in the School of Communication at the University
of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO), fully understands that. Katrina became much
more personal for her, though.

"You
meet all of these wonderful people who have all come from the most traumatic
situations," she said. "You just wonder what's going to happen
to them."

At the
start of the fall semester, Quigley answered a call for volunteers from
her former employer, the American Red Cross, and went to Louisiana for
16 days to serve as one of the organization's communications experts. This
was also her first semester as a UNO graduate student and teaching assistant. She
said the faculty in the School of Communication understood the importance
of the volunteer assignment, and they helped make her trip south possible.

"It
was challenging, but we felt it was something we could do to help with
the relief effort," said Jeremy Lipschultz, director of the UNO School
of Communication. The school has a dozen teaching assistants this semester. Dr.
Lipschultz said it took a little schedule juggling by Karen Dwyer, an associate
professor in the school and the basic speech course director who coordinates
the graduate teaching assistants' schedule, but the graduate student course
work never suffered.

"I
was more than willing to juggle her teaching schedule with another graduate
student so she could go and do this important work for the people of Louisiana
without having to worry," Dr. Dwyer said.

With the
class she was teaching at UNO covered, Quigley was fully able to focus
on her work in Louisiana. "It's the magnitude of what you see and
hear," she said.

Initially,
her job put her in the heart of a relief center in Baton Rouge, La., about
80 miles from New Orleans. The city's Civic Center wasn't as vast as the
Superdome or Astrodome, but it had more than 5,000 evacuees living there
when she arrived. Scheduled 12-hour days typically became 15 hours plus
because of the work.

As a spokesperson,
Quigley served as a media liaison, a writer and a general helping hand
for the Red Cross. It was a role she was familiar with. Quigley had been
the communication director for Omaha's Heartland Chapter of the American
Red Cross for seven years before leaving to pursue freelance work. She
kept her name on the books to help out, though.

"You
never really leave the Red Cross," she said. More than 212,900 disaster
relief workers from the Red Cross have been assigned to hurricane-related
projects since September.

While
she was in Louisiana, she saw none of the disorganization and evacuee disarray
that became a national news story. While communication technology – cell
phones, the Internet, even land line telephones – initially failed and
failed to keep people in touch, the work done by the Red Cross and other
relief organizations kept individuals and families safe and began reconnecting
them to extended family, friends and community, she said.

"This
really was the experience of a lifetime, and I got to meet people who were
truly angels," she said. Physicians, nurses, mental health workers
and other volunteers all did amazing work. As a communications specialist,
she said she had a first-hand opportunity to see that work up close.

By the
end of her time in Baton Rouge, the number of people staying at the Civic
Center had dropped to about 2,500. During the last days of her volunteer
assignment, Quigley left the city for smaller communities that were not
as hard hit by the hurricane but were still coping with health and infrastructure
issues that were largely out of the national spotlight.

"Flexibility
is a big lesson learned," Quigley said. "There are times when
you have to change what you want to do because of the situation."

Since
she has come back to campus, Quigley has found herself being flexible,
too. She has caught up with her own class work and, instead of teaching
classes, she has been working in the UNO School of Communication's Speech
Center.

"Helene
is a terrific graduate teaching assistant," Dr. Lipschultz said. "She
has a great personality, and she's a great fit for helping students using
the Speech Center."

Dr. Dwyer
added Quigley has brought back a wealth of new practical knowledge that
will help in her teaching role. "Being a spokesperson is great real-world
public speaking experience," she said.

Quigley's
goal is to get a master's degree emphasizing technical communication and
design, and to continue teaching visual communication. Prior to her graduate
work, she taught graphic design at Metropolitan Community College and Bellevue
University for three years.

"New
Orleans has always been one of my favorite cities," she said. "I'm
hoping to get there again once it's running smoothly."

Quigley
will co-teach a daylong Public Affairs I class in February with Roseanne
Bachman, communication director from the Heartland Chapter of the American
Red Cross. Call the Red Cross at 402.343.7700 for details.